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Five years to the month after the Irish Government made a commitment in the 2010 international bailout agreement to introduce legal services reforms, and 25 years after the Fair Trade Commission recommended the ending of the ban on direct access by the public to barristers, Frances Fitzgerald, justice minister, said Wednesday: "This Government is delivering on long-overdue reforms"— this claim is "an oeconomy of truth" as Edmund Burke wrote of a contemporary issue in 1796 (the usage of oeconomy was later overtaken by the word economy). In the vernacular it is a lie as the minister has produced the feeble excuse for the non-reform that Enda Kenny, taoiseach, desired and which is bizarrely supported by his deputy, Joan Burton, who is also the Labour Party leader.

Jobs in Irish exporting firms at the end of September 2015 were down 30,000 compared with the second quarter (Q2) of 2008, according to the latest quarterly employment data published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Tuesday.

In 2012 George Osborne, UK chancellor, spoke of the "march of the makers" challenging companies to double exports to £1tn by 2020 — the target will not be met. Neither will the British government target to add 100,000 exporters be met — the numbers fell in 2014. Last March in Ireland, Enda Kenny, taoiseach, said in a speech on the Irish 2014 trade performance that "export growth at 12.6% was the strongest since 2001." This jump on the 2013 export headline value masked a reality that is a taboo issue at official level — the indigenous international trading sector is among the worst in Europe.

The Irish broad level of unemployment was at 416,474 in October — about 19% of the workforce. The narrow level of unemployment in October was at 203,000 in October at a rate of 9.3% — this rate is the same as the average for the EU28: The EU-28 unemployment rate was 9.3% in September 2015, down from 9.4% in August 2015, and from 10.1 % in September 2014.

A report commissioned by the Department of Finance on the impact of the UK exiting from the EU after a referendum, says Irish trade with Britain could be reduced by 20% or more. However, this week George Osborne, UK chancellor of the exchequer, spoke in Germany to the main business lobby. We say "maybe not" as Germany has a big trade surplus with the UK, and it would be in the interest of all sides to maintain trade. The UK is far more significant than Switzerland or Norway.

Ireland: Apple's foreign tax rate on its overseas earnings rose to 6% in fiscal year 2015 that ended on 26 Sept 2015, and this compares with a rate of 2% in 2012. Total net income jumped from $53.5bn in 2014 to $72.5bn in 2015. Net income was at $50.1bn in 2013 — the headline corporate tax rate in Apple's main overseas markets is at least 20%.

A research report on the Back To Education Allowance (BTEA) for Irish unemployed, produced by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and published Wednesday says the scheme was in effect useless as there is no evidence of improved employment outcomes for recipients. Some recipients have been on courses for up to six years.

A further solid improvement in business conditions in the Irish manufacturing sector was recorded in October according to a monthly survey. However, the data are not reliable as official figures show a 30% surge in production in the 12 months to June — a jump of almost a third in activity suggests the booking of overseas production in Ireland for tax purposes, which is termed "contract manufacturing."

In 1849 with $2,500 borrowed from Charles Pfizer's father, cousins Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhart, young entrepreneurs from Germany, opened Charles Pfizer & Company as a fine-chemicals business. It began in a modest red-brick building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York and by 2014 through organic growth and acquisition, it had the second highest revenues for a pharmaceutical company in the world. Now Now Ian Read, its Scottish-born chairman and CEO, wants the group to become Irish for tax purposes. If it succeeds, it will further distort Ireland's national accounts.